Not all black and white? Or pretty black and white. YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. STOP TOYING WITH ME.

Especially in light of the National Zoo's devastating loss of the newborn panda cub this weekend. Which: No joke or snark, I am UPSET. I am feeling genuine feelings of feelingsosity and I don't like it. This goes against every word I've ever written about The Fucking Zoo and how it Fucking Sucks because it's Outside and Full Of Nature and Pooping Things and also Uphill In Every Possible Direction. But there it is. I am really terribly sad and bummed about the poor tiny wittle baby panda and the poor sad mama panda and DAMMIT, NATURE. YOU REALLY ARE THE WORST.

Also the worst: Me, for deciding to tell Noah about the baby panda yesterday morning, while he pondered the above cereal box and asked questions about pandas and hey! Speaking of pandas! There's a brand-new miracle panda baby at the zoo that we can maybe go see in a couple months!

And of course Noah — since he is NOT a bitter jaded Zoo-person like his mother who thinks the pandas are kind of overrated and not worth the line because they just SIT THERE and chew on leaves while the tourists are all OMFG PANDAS PANDAS PANDAS — thought this sounded excellent! Very exciting! Can we go today? Tomorrow? Today?

I totally jinxed that poor baby panda and I feel terrible about it. And now I have to decide between telling my child the truth or inventing a cover story about how the baby panda went to go live on a nice big wide-open bamboo farm in China.

***

Ugh. This is too depressing for a Monday. Let's look at some pictures instead, from earlier in the weekend when life was happy and fun and baby pandas lived forever.

BONUS OF WHAT THE ACTUAL LIVING HELL, STOP THAT RIGHT NOW, NOT-SO-BABY IKE:

Comments

We told the kids about the Yay! baby panda, and then at dinner last night had to do the Boo! No baby panda talk. It was sad, but they took it very matter-of-fact-ly. I too am very sad about poor tiny panda. (Did you know it was only the size of a stick of butter? How do mama pandas not just put the baby down and lose it under a bamboo leaf?)

I'm beginning to think that the National Zoo is jinxed against pandas entirely. Poor thing, I'm just glad that I didn't mention to my kids; thankfully they are still talking about the chimpanzees eating poopies at the Baltimore Zoo.

NO. NO. NO. You stop it this instant, IkeNonBaby! THE HELL KIND OF NONSENSE IS THIS, AMY? SERIOUSLY. THE FUCK? I CANNOT STOP SHOUTING.

I am angry about the baby panda. And sad. Angry because damn, Mother Nature. And sad because well, just damn, Mother Nature. (We didn't venture to the zoo this whole year when usually we go multiple times. I attribute this to heat and nature and pooping things outdoors in the heat which makes all manner of poop reach far beyond the nostril, into the chamber of the brain that spews Fucking Zoo, and also too: hills no matter where you turn). Truth to kids: the Chinese want their billions back. They settled for a baby panda.

Back to what I can deal with more easily: can't you like sit on baby Ike or tie him down, duct tape him so that he is actually living the baby in his name?

I'm so glad you said that about (not so) Baby Ike, so I didn't have to. Not even my kid, and I was all, WTF, IKE?!? No one said you could get bigger. I tell this to my 1.5 year old all the time. Though, if she'd like to become potty trained today, that would be just fine with me. But she can only do it if she stays little. Who am I kidding - she can do it today if she continues to get big too. I am craving an end to diapers. Having just trained her big sis, I see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am running right for it.

I, too, am so sad about the Baby Panda. Did you hear that the Mama Panda has been cradling a plastic bear toy for days since the baby died? It's just too much, Mother Nature.

In related panda FYIs, a friend of mine did her graduate thesis on panda reproduction (she created a prosthetic panda vagina so males in captivity could, um, practice) and told me that baby pandas are actually so small when they are born that they literally shoot out of their mother's ladybits.

yeah...20+ weeks pregnant with first child + baby panda article = inconsolable for at LEAST 5 minutes. I had to stop myself from going to the fridge and crying while holding a stick of butter (since they said the baby was that size). WAAAAHHHH!!!

On a happier panda note, let me just say that when went to the National Zoo for the first time with our kids a few years back, they were kind of underwhelmed with the pandas...until one did what I can only call a prodigious poop. So prodigious that they were able to call my attention to it and I was able to get a picture of it - IN PROGRESS. Talk about a lasting impression! They still talk about it to this day.

I admit to being panda-obsessed. So, I actually know a lot about the mother (Mei Xiang) and how long it took her to get pregnant, and that if she didn't get pregnant this year, she was going to be shipped back to China. So sad. I'm glad my son isn't old enough to understand.

Soooo, I mentioned to my kids that yay there's a new baby panda and then didn't tell them when crap new baby panda died. But, someone else told them. So depending on how N will take it you might want to tell him yourself. Mine looked like they were going to cry and I wish I had told them at home.